SQUAKE has added station-to-station emissions data from the Rail Delivery Group to its Rail Emission Model, replacing national averages for British rail journeys.
The dataset, known as Green Travel Data, is the first national dataset the model has adopted at this scale.
SQUAKE said methodologies differ by country, energy mix and operator, and few give reporting teams a way to tell real operational data from extrapolated figures.
It built the model to give travel and sustainability teams a single methodology in any market and described the dataset as the highest-granularity source in the British market to date.
Most corporate rail emissions reporting still relies on a national or operator average applied to an estimated distance. SQUAKE said Britain is no longer one of the places where that is the only option. For a travel manager weighing rail against air, or a finance team preparing an assured disclosure under European reporting rules, the figure is now built from the train types, formations and passenger loadings on that specific station pair.
The data covers the National Rail network and is supplied by all British train operators, including every government-contracted service. Electric energy figures come from Network Rail, while diesel figures come from owner and operator reporting.
Distances are the actual distances travelled, so the model’s detour correction, an estimate applied where exact route data is unavailable, is not needed for British calculations. Standard and first class are reported separately.
The Rail Delivery Group has also voluntarily adopted the Code of Practice for Statistics and is listed on the Office for Statistics Regulation’s register of voluntary application.
Within the model the data is configurable. Where a partner reports British rail travel and chooses to use it, the model matches the station pair against the dataset and labels the result. Every calculation returns audit information covering the method used, the distance, the emission factor source and its date, so reporting teams can see which trips were priced on the new data and which fell back to an operator or national figure.
SQUAKE said the model works as a fallback hierarchy that reaches the most specific data available and discloses what it settled for, with national datasets at the top. SNCF’s Info GES in France and Deutsche Bahn’s CO2 kompass in Germany are planned to follow, along with any comparable national source.
Philipp von Lamezan, CEO of SQUAKE, said: “Modal shift towards rail is one of the key drivers in sustainable travel adoption. Rail emission factors are not a solved problem, and they are not solved the same way in any two countries. RDG has built one of the strongest national rail datasets anywhere, so the sensible thing is to use it rather than model around it.”
Paul Bowden, Commercial Director, Rail Delivery Group, said: “What started as a single-route pilot in 2023 has grown into one of the most comprehensive rail emissions datasets in the world. Together, RDG and SQUAKE are helping travel managers, sustainability teams and businesses make better-informed decisions with trusted, data-driven insight, supporting the transition to more sustainable travel and more robust environmental reporting.”
The Rail Emission Model is free to use and its full methodology is published for industry review. It is available at no cost through the travel management companies and online booking tools that SQUAKE and the Travalyst Coalition already partner with. British travel managers can speak to their Account Manager for details, and organisations that want the data enabled for their British rail reporting can contact SQUAKE.
